How the name 'Men in Black' came to be
by Jetainia
Summary: Seriously, what are we going to name an organisation that looks after aliens?


**A/N: Cross-posted on AO3. K's name is now correct but I couldn't be bothered searching for the others and I don't even know if all of the others exist in canon.**

* * *

Aliens were real, aliens were _real_ and Dimitri was talking to them, along with Zachariah and a young man called Kevin. There was also an astronomer named Adrian and five other agents; Bob, Xavier, Carlos, Luke and Frank. Kevin had flowers in his hand, he gave them to the alien and they made a pact. Earth would become a safe, neutral place for all aliens and they would form an organisation to keep them under control.

It was only when they had left the aliens behind and were gathered around a table in a small coffee shop that they came across the biggest problem. All the good names were taken. SHIELD was probably the luckiest out of all of them, how cool was a name like SHIELD? Even if the non-acronymic version of their name was a giant mass of words that almost no one could remember.

"Seriously, what are we going to name an organisation that looks after _aliens_?"

"How about the 'Weird Enterprise of Aliens, People and Occupationally Neutral', we could be called WEAPON. Weapons and shields generally go together."

"The Weird Enterprise of Aliens People and Occupationally Neutral? Really Bob? That barely makes sense."

"Well neither does SHIELD's!"

"Can you imagine the amount of questions we'd get about that name? I bet every time SHIELD introduces themselves they get questions. I bet even the agents wonder about the name."

Luke nodded and added, "At least it's better than 'SSR'. Strategic Scientific Reserve? At least Peggy Carter was cool."

Kevin snorted, "My son calls her the Woman of America, he would call us the 'Men in Black'."

"Men in Black, really?" hummed Zachariah.

"Yeah, Phil loves all of this kind of stuff, especially Captain America."

"I like it."

"Like what Dimitri?"

"Men in Black, it has a nice ring to it. We can make black suits our uniform so that people don't ask why we're called Men in Black. We will be men, in black."

"Really? We're going to name this super-secret organisation that deals with aliens, after what my son thinks is _cool_?"

"That we are Monsieur K," Frank slapped him on the back, "That we are."

Bob and Carlos looked at each other and shared grins, "How about we take up new names? We refer to each other purely by the first letters of our first names. I could be Agent C and Bob could be Agent B. That way no one would know who we really are."

The group of nine looked at each other and nodded, they would be the Men in Black and they would take on their new mantles of a single letter. "But we can't have women, if we have women we won't be the _Men_ in Black, we'll just be the People in Black."

"If the woman's good enough we should take her, Xavier. Just look at Peggy Carter, she's a badass, Captain America himself thought so. We are not excluding women simply because of our name."

"Whatever Bob, sorry _B_ , if she's good enough we'll let her in."

"Then it's settled," announced Z, "we are now officially the Men in Black."

* * *

Meredith smiled at Z, "So, aliens, huh? Need some help dealing with them?"

"Depends, are you good enough?" Z replied with a laugh.

Meredith was good enough it turned out. Xavier eventually got over the fact that their name didn't make as much sense anymore, mainly because Agent M saved his life a couple of times. The agents soon realised that they couldn't keep their normal lives as well as chill with aliens so they made the choice. Be deleted forever with only their letter as an identifier or leave the MiB and go back to normality and pretend aliens didn't exist.

Everyone, even K, made the choice to stay. They had all found something to fight for in their agency, they had all found a purpose and they would make sure they pursued that purpose 'til the end of their lives. K's son was fifteen when Kevin become a full-time MiB agent and left him alone with an aunt.

Phil Coulson was smart however, he knew his father was still alive and he would find him no matter what. His mum was dead, Clarence, his dad's girlfriend didn't understand him and his aunt found it creepy that a child could be such an adult. So he joined the army, fought in several wars, got recruited by the agency with the worst yet coolest name and battled aliens.

That was when he met Agent K, beings from another planet tended to attract the Men in Black and Thor was no different. Agent D, Agent K's partner, laughed out loud when he met Agent Coulson. This extremely efficient agent of SHIELD was the son who had named their agency the Men in Black. Added to this was the fact that Agent Phil Coulson was wearing a black suit, the irony was real.

Agent K rolled his eyes and gestured for Phil to accompany him, "Agent Coulson, I have some information you may be interested in, as well as a spot that has been saved for you in our agency since the day you named it."


End file.
